In a typical network environment, client devices request and download content stored within network servers. Exemplary content includes web pages that may contain one or more of text, graphics, video, and sound data. Other examples of content include files, multimedia data streams (e.g., audio or video data streams), electronic messages, and data tables. Upon receiving the content requests, the network servers typically retrieve the requested content, break the requested content into packets, and transmit the packets to the requesting client device. Routers and other network infrastructure direct these packets through the network to the client devices, which, in turn, reconstruct the content from the packets and present the content to users via applications residing on the client devices.
The network may experience a variety of issues that result in decreased download speeds at the client devices. These issues include a large volume of content requests that overload or otherwise diminish the capacity of a network server to timely service the requested content, general network congestion and limited network bandwidth, and the physical distance separating the client and the server. To increase download speeds, the network may employ one or more intermediate network acceleration devices located between the client devices and the servers to address the above listed issues or other issues that adversely effect download speeds.
For example, an intermediate network acceleration device may cache content when a client device first requests the content. The network acceleration device provides a single cache space with the goal of sharing content between client devices. For example, after caching certain content, the network acceleration device may intercept subsequent requests from other clients for that same content and provide the cached content to the requesting client devices, thereby avoiding additional accesses to the servers. In this manner, the network acceleration device seeks to utilize the shared cache space to increase the overall efficiency and responsiveness of delivering content to the clients.